Oh Happy Days! What’s the True Value of Loyalty?

What’s the true value of customer loyalty?

This week I received a greeting card in the post. It’s not my birthday or anyway near our wedding anniversary. On opening it had a message of ‘Happy Days’… It was a thank-you card from First Direct celebrating the fact that I had been a customer for 25 years or 9,131 days. Nice thought I mused until when logging on I was confronted with an offer of £100 cash if, as a new customer, I had just switched to them.

Greeting card or cash, which would you feel would be the best incentive to move or stay?
My loyalty is to a satisfactory service and reasonable facilities, greeting card or no… They may not have noticed but I moved all my standing orders for utilities etc. to Santander 123 for a cash back and interest on balances. Their approach to loyalty is even more cynical – having acquired me and many others, they have quintupled the cost of the account and cut the interest.

Marketing Inspiration

Marketing it seems to banks is to fool some of the people all of the time. Oh happy days?